1994
The first rehearsals of the nameless Somber Serenity predecessor were in spring '94. We were a four-piece at that time: Andy Meyer (guitar), Robert Mutzbauer (drums), Heinz Stumpf (bass) and Stefan Botz (guitar). At this early stage we had no real musical aim, so our songs had no fixed direction.

1995
With Eddy we found our first vocalist, but this Line-up wasn't very stable, cause a few month after Eddy joined we decided to go on without Heinz and a few weeks after that Eddy moved away from munich, so it was impossible for him to rehearse with us, and we ended up as a three-piece.
Early '95 it was clear that we wanted to play a kind of Doom-Death Metal and we wrote the first songs, which should become the musical foundation of Somber Sereniy. Four of these songs should later become "Scavenger's crown", "S.B.D.", "In ancient dungeon deep" and "Within the savage garden".
After some month of searching we found Daniel Varoß in september '95 and he took over the position of the vocalist. After a short time he decided to took over the bass too, cause we couldn't find another musician. In september '95 we choose the name SOMBER SERENITY and therefore this can be seen as the birth of SOMBER SERENITY.

1996
After we finished two more songs ("the Timberwolf" and "Drowned In Sorrow") we played our first gig in may and five more gigs followed during that year.
We started to record our first demo "Drowned In Sorrow" in july '96 and after some delays we released it in november. The first 100 Tapes of this demo were made with a blue label and the second edition (again 100 tapes) was made with white labels. Beside our two new songs we recorded also the older tracks "Scavenger's crown" and "Within the savage garden" for this demo.

1997
In june '97 we recorded our second demo "Swallowed..." with the new songs "Goddess of Light", "...to feel you fade..." (instrumental), "Swallow the Sun", "Weeping at the Streams" and "Cold Embrace".
During this year we played seven gigs with bands like SLEEPING GODS, NIGHT IN GALES or GONE SADNESS for example.
We recorded the new track "Last Scion of Winter" in november '97. This song was featured on the ABERRATION sampler #1, and the French OCÉAN MORPHIQUE tape-sampler #1. Shortly after this recording session founding member Andy Meyer left the band in december '97.

1998
It was march '98, when Reiner Benthele joined the band as a new guitar player. With this new Line-up we played six gigs and one of these was our first gig abroad - we played in Straßbourg (France) with APOPLEXY, GONE SADNESS and CARCARIASS.
In august 1998, we released the 7" split single with GONE SADNESS, which contains the previously unreleased song "The Return (Timberwolf Pt. II)" and its intro "Fiery Dawn", which we recorded in june of this year. Another new song "The Sufferer" was recorded in july '98 and appears on the Canadian Impaler Rec. sampler #1.
Somewhere in '98 we got the first offer for a record contract, but we refused it because it wasn't the kind of contract we wanted to sign!

1999
We recorded two new songs ("Tragedy Star" and "Nemesis - my Childe") in march, which we included to our "Promo '99" CD (released in july). During the first half of this year we had also played three gigs in Munich and Heilbronn with VIOLATION, KARKADAN and EKPYROSIS for example.
Manuel Iosca from FUNEBRIS joined the band in july '99 as the new bassplayer, cause Daniel wanted to concentrate more on his vocals, but one month after that SOMBER SERENITY separated from Reiner Benthele and Daniel took over the guitar. At that time we also recorded three more songs ("In solitude divine", "The Severance" and a new version of "Swallow the Sun") and theses tracks were released on the second edition of our "Promo '99" CD.
The first gig of the new Line-up was in November with PANDEMONIUM and HEREAFTER AND NOW in Munich.

2000
In February of this year we had the chance to play our most important gig until that time. We played as the opener for THE GATHERING and MY DYING BRIDE at the Metropolis in Munich. Beside this gig we played three more in Munich, Neufahrn and Willmering with TRINITY (now CYBERYA), HEREAFTER AND NOW (now DEEP INSIDE MYSELF), DEAD EMOTIONS and LUNAR AURORA for example.
Early 2000 we got our second offer from a small label, but after some month we had to admit that the company wasn´t trustworthy, so we refused this contract too.
Without a contract we entered the LITTLE DREAM studio to record our first full-lenght CD in june 2000 and we mixed and mastered the CD at the DREAMSCAPE studio with Jan Vacik in august.
In may we got in contact with Mike Schindler from DRAGON DESIGN, because we were looking for a cover artwork and in august we received the picture from him, which is now the cover of our CD.
With our now recorded album we started again to spread it to some record labels, but unfortunately we didn't get an offer.

2001
Bass player Manuel Iosca left the band at the end of february and the bad bandfeeling which we had at that time ended up in another split and we continued SOMBER SERENITY without Daniel Varoß.
After a few weeks we could start again to rehearse with our new members Michael Knöringer on vocals and Árpád Jakab on bass. We were still searching for a new guitar player and so we couldn't play gigs that year.
Somewhere in that time of rebuilding SOMBER SERENITY we got an offer from Mike Schindler and Conny Renner who wanted to start a promotion and distribution agency under the banner of MEDUSA PRODUCTIONS. We financed the production of our CD and with this signed contract we finally released our "Singular" CD in cooperation with them in November '01!

2002
Early '02 Christian Löbering became our new guitar player and with this new Line-up we played our first gig at the end of march.
We started to record three new tracks and a rewritten version of our old demo track "cold embrace" for a new promo CD in june, but we had to stop this recording session due to technical problems. After we had played six more gigs in Munich, Landshut, Ellbach, Mindelheim, Augsburg and Ulm we recorded the promo CD again in december.
At the end of that year Árpád Jakab left us, cause he had the chance to work at the University in Vancouver / Canada to get his doctor degree. A few weeks before Árpád left we started to rehearse with our new bass player Max Marquardt, who is also a member of SYCRONOMICA.

To be continued...



Source : http://www.ofdarkness.de/somberserenity/site/frame.htm